Thirteen participants from BWI affiliates in East Africa sub region met
in Nairobi on the 5th to 7th November, 2014 to carry out an evaluation
of LO-Norway project as well as deliberate on vocational training and
technical education in the construction sector.

The project titled « scaling up gender fair structures and policies in
BWI sectors in East Africa – targeting infrastructure projects and
organizing Multinational Companies » has been implemented by five
building and construction unions affiliates of BWI in the sub region.

The workshop objectives were to assess the project achievement and
challenges, share experiences, recruitment and organizing strategies and
the essence of vocational training to achieve decent work and building
skills at work.

All participants to the workshop have shown that the project was indeed a
success as the objectives were well achieved despite normal challenges
they faced in organizing and recruitment. However they embraced the
whole project and even the concept of vocational training and technical
education which has been a challenge in the sector that is viewed to be
informal. The main challenge was gender involvement in the training
where in all the participating unions many women are not involved in the
building and construction sector.

One of the main issues raised during the workshop was the violation of
workers’ rights by Chinese MNCs. Therefore, the affiliates pin the hopes
on BWI in helping them deal with the issue of Chinese

The workshop was conducted by BWI Regional Project Coordinator Garikanai Shoko and BWI East Africa Project Coordinator Kivale Ali Said while participants were Project Coordinators and Educators from Kenya Building, UNRISK, Uganda Building, TAMICO and Ethiopia affiliates who were part of this project from 2012 – 2014.